Episode 235: If Diets Worked, You’d Be Done By Now

Jonathan Ressler:

Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the podcast of cutting through the noise. It’s about all the bullshit diet industry, Instagram, Bluetooth, online videos, and all those assholes throw at you. It’s an ugly world out there. But let’s not get caught up in that because, hey, it’s New Year’s Eve today. It’s New Year’s Eve, and you already know tonight is about to go off the rails. Drinks. Food. Noise. Chaos.

You’ll listen to this tomorrow, not today, because right now you’re too busy pretending Monday is gonna fix your life. But you need this before you step into 2026 thinking a new diet is gonna save you. It will not. It never has. And that’s exactly where we’re gonna start today.

Dieting is the laziest form of pretending. Period.

People hate hearing that because dieting makes them feel busy. It gives them charts. It gives them rules. It gives them something to point at when they fall apart. It feels productive because it looks organized and gives you structure without requiring you to think. It asks nothing from you except blind obedience, and that’s why most people love it.

Dieting removes responsibility. You get to follow someone else’s plan and then blame the plan when you collapse. You get to claim you’re committed without making a single real choice. You outsource your power and you call it discipline.

And the entire time you’re doing it, you know the truth. You know you’re not changing. You know you’re not building habits. You know you’re not learning anything about your behavior. You’re repeating the same pattern in a different fucking costume.

Dieting guarantees failure every time. Not because you’re weak or because your life is chaotic. Diets fail because they were designed to fail. They depend on perfect conditions that do not exist.

The second your schedule gets messy, the plan falls apart. The second someone brings food to work, the plan falls apart. The second your energy dips, the plan falls apart.

Diets collapse the moment real life shows up.

Look at your own history. Every diet came with the same promise and the same ending. You started strong. You followed the rules. You told everybody how focused you were. I know. I’ve said that hundreds of times. But then life punched a hole in the structure and you had no idea how to adjust.

You slip once and declare the day is ruined. You slip twice and say fuck it, the week is over. Then you shop for a new program so you can repeat the same problem with a different flavor.

Diets look hard. Choosing is hard. Diets feel controlled. Choosing is controlling. Diets give you a script. Choosing forces you to be honest with yourself.

Diets tell you what to eat. Choosing teaches you why you eat.

Diets hold your hand. Choosing holds you accountable.

That’s why you run to diets and run from choice. Choice exposes the truth. You don’t want to face your patterns. You don’t want to admit how often you surrender your decisions. You negotiate yourself straight into chaos.

So you pick a diet. You hide behind rules. You tell yourself you’re fixed as long as you follow the plan. You convince yourself structure equals transformation.

Here’s the bad news. If structure worked, you’d be finished by now.

Dieting is an illusion of discipline without the growth discipline requires. Diets don’t teach you how to handle stress. They don’t teach you how to handle travel. They don’t teach you how to handle nighttime eating when your day blows up. They don’t teach you how to course-correct when you fuck up.

Diets teach you one thing. Dependence.

You follow the rules. You lose control. You blame the rules. Then you search for new rules over and over, year after year. Meanwhile, you convince yourself you’re working hard when all you’re doing is repeating the same loop.

Choice is the exact opposite. Choice demands honesty. It exposes your habits. It forces you to lead yourself. It builds confidence because you stop handing off your decisions. And most importantly, it works in your actual life.

Real stress. Real schedules. Real kitchens. Real food.

And this is where my work lands hard. I’m not the person for you if you want ripped abs and a second home inside the gym. I show people how to lose weight and get healthy while living real lives with real schedules and real responsibilities.

No fantasy world. No performance. No bullshit.

That’s why Stop Dieting. Start Choosing. works.

Your weight is not shaped by plans. It’s shaped by decisions.

Diets pretend to fix you. Choice actually does.

So welcome to this episode.

Here’s why dieting never works. Not rarely works. Not works for some people. Never works.

Dieting fails for one reason. It cannot survive real life.

Real life is where you live.

Diets depend on strict rules that only make sense in perfect conditions. Conditions nobody actually has.

The plan looks impressive on paper. The structure feels safe. Someone hands you a list of what you can and can’t eat and you convince yourself structure equals success.

Then life shows up. Work. Family. Travel. Stress. Cravings. Emotions. And the diet cracks. Once it cracks, it collapses.

Diets trap you inside someone else’s system. Someone else’s rules. Someone else’s idea of your life.

Your life demands flexibility. Diets demand obedience. Life wins every time.

So you restart. Then restart again. Then shop for a new plan. Same bullshit. New packaging.

You think you’re the problem. You’re not. The diet failed the moment real life showed up.

Choosing works because it adjusts. It bends. It adapts.

Choosing asks one question. What is my next smart move right now.

Not tomorrow. Right now.

Choosing teaches response instead of reaction. And that’s why it works.

That’s why I lost 140 pounds and kept it off. That’s why more than 300 people have lost over 13,000 pounds using this approach.

No diets. No lists. No perfection.

They wanted health. Not abs. They wanted control. Not punishment.

That’s who this system is for.

Dieting will never work. Choosing always will.

Happy and healthy New Year.

Here’s to 2026 being the year you finally shut up and choose.